Motion capture performance, anonymity, and the future of film acting
I wasn't quite sure where to put this—it could go in the Tech Forum or in the Food and Entertainment Forum; hell, Andy Serkis's Gollum Trump tweets could also find a home in the US Politics thread...
Anyhow, I watched this clip of his appearance on Steven Colbert's show this AM...
This got me thinking about the future of film acting in the light of rapid technological advancements in motion capture. We have come a long, LONG way from the release of the Final Fantasy movie, and I while the decision to resurrect the character General Tao in Rogue One: A Star Wars Story has endured a fair amount of criticism I was personally very impressed.
It has been suggested for some time now that this is the future of film acting: virtually generated characters in a digital world that are enlivened by human actors behind the scenes. In another decade, the technology will unsurprisingly advance to the point that we will no longer be able to detect most of the differences between digitally generated characters and environments from "real" ones. Could this also open the way for a new generation of entirely anonymous performers? If, as Andy Serkis asserts—that we are entering a world in which any performer can now play any role, then could not any performer also then choose to live a life out of the public eye if she or he chose to do so? Would this also open the way for new performers, who are no longer handicapped by their physical appearance or reputation? How will a new digitally generated world affect peoples rights to privacy in other venues?
You should certainly watch Serkis's bit, if only for the Gollum Trump tweets @ 03:44.
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Originally Posted by woob
"...harem warfare? like all your wives dressup and go paintballing?"
I think the problem will always come with human faces -- they just can't get them quite right, because we train ourselves from literally the moment we're born to recognize a real one. Like the Tarkin effect you mentioned -- that was state of the art technology that cost a fortune and probably had a dedicated team of a dozen dudes working on for months. But it still just didn't look quite right. Environments can already be done photo realistically, animals and aliens are good enough that our brain glosses over the details. But the human face is just hard to trick the brain into believing.
They're already regurarly using CGI "human" faces in movie posters. Like in War of the Planet of the Apes -poster. Plenty of others too. People don't seem to mind.
A lot of kids also grow up with CGI-acting in games these days. In a decade the audiences will be used to that.
I predict within a few years the hottest trend in makeup will be "CGI-look".
while the decision to resurrect the character General Tao in Rogue One: A Star Wars Story has endured a fair amount of criticism I was personally very impressed.
Well, CGI has always been ok for movies like Star Wars and the SCIFI genre. 100 percent CGI will not fly on human interest movies though, even something like the movie Hidden Figures would be absurd in CGI.
I guess it depends. If the movie calls for it, or you really value the voice of an actor/actress that doesn't have the look for the role, then for sure.
But if you already have the actor / actress look like the part, then why wouldn't you just go with their face rather than spend needless money, time, and effort to motion capture it just to touch up the faces. And no matter how "real" CGI looks, it still wouldn't ever be better than the real thing. How can it? If it becomes 99.9% as good, then why not just use the readily available real face?
Where this will be a real benefit is like the Star Wars example, of the last Terminator movie. You want to have the original actor / actress reprise their roles, but they're too old looking for the part. So you use CGI to fix it.
Young Kurt Russell in Guardians 2 was impressive to me. It might not hold up under close scrutiny on a 4K TV but in the theatre it looked great.
It'll be interesting to see if that technique is used in non-sci-fi films for older actors. It would be neat to see them try to do it for an entire film.
I was surprised to learn how little pure CGI was used in that process. They filmed Russell performing the scene with the regular motion capture dots on his face for mapping and makeup to help reduce the lines on his face. Then they had a younger actor who looked similar to Russell mimic the scene completely. They then merged the two and cleaned it up with computers (I'm obviously simplifying).
Young Kurt Russell in Guardians 2 was impressive to me as. It'll be interesting to see if that technique is used in non-sci-fi films for older actors. It would be neat to see them try to do it for an entire film.
I was surprised to learn how little pure CGI was used in that process. They filmed Russell performing the scene with the regular motion capture dots on his face for mapping and makeup to help reduce the lines on his face. Then they had a younger actor who looked similar to Russell mimic the scene completely. They then merged the two and cleaned it up with computers (I'm obviously simplifying).
They already do and have been for years, although to a lesser extent. If you see an FX company called Lola in the credits, actors faces have been touched up. Some actors have it standard in their contracts that Lola be used to make them look better.
Young Kurt Russell in Guardians 2 was impressive to me. It might not hold up under close scrutiny on a 4K TV but in the theatre it looked great.
It'll be interesting to see if that technique is used in non-sci-fi films for older actors. It would be neat to see them try to do it for an entire film.
I was surprised to learn how little pure CGI was used in that process. They filmed Russell performing the scene with the regular motion capture dots on his face for mapping and makeup to help reduce the lines on his face. Then they had a younger actor who looked similar to Russell mimic the scene completely. They then merged the two and cleaned it up with computers (I'm obviously simplifying).
GOTG2 was shot in 8k and most theatres showed it in 4K. If it looked great on the big screen it will look good at home.
Pacino or De Niro doing a full movie like that would be great or completely disastrous.
Not sure if you're specifically aware of it, but that appears to be the plan for Scorsese's next film The Irishman. Both DeNiro and Pacino (and Harvey Keitel, I believe) have been cast to play younger versions of their characters throughout the film.
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General Tao threw me for a loop, I'm back now, wild ride.
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...But if you already have the actor / actress look like the part, then why wouldn't you just go with their face rather than spend needless money, time, and effort to motion capture it just to touch up the faces. And no matter how "real" CGI looks, it still wouldn't ever be better than the real thing. How can it? If it becomes 99.9% as good, then why not just use the readily available real face?...
Because we may enter a day and age in which it does actually become more economical. Film and casting directors could at that point reproduce characters completely and directly from their imaginations. Like I said, we are not yet at the stage where CGI characters are entirely indistinguishable from live action, but does anyone doubt that we will get to that point before too long?
And like Serkis said, in an age where motion capture can manufacture any character or character feature, then theoretically any actor can in fact play any role in spite of her or his physical limitations. I could imagine a world in which this would both greatly expand the pool of film actors and also bring down their costs. It could lead to an entertainment world in which all actors have avatars, and can essentially divorce their public personae completely from their private lives.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by woob
"...harem warfare? like all your wives dressup and go paintballing?"
You could for example decide pretty late in the process that you'd like a character to be more deadpan, then change that characters every expression in the film accordingly. (Plus tweak the voice.)
The end result will likely be even more formulaic films.
You could also make much better movies with celebrities that can't act.
You could for example decide pretty late in the process that you'd like a character to be more deadpan, then change that characters every expression in the film accordingly. (Plus tweak the voice.)
The end result will likely be even more formulaic films.
You could also make much better movies with celebrities that can't act.
Interesting concept, CGI movies entirely developed by algorithms. Can't be any worse than a Micheal Bay movie.
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We'll always have actors. Celebrity plays too important a role in the entertainment industry. There's a reason producers pay a-list actors so much money when there are just as skilled but less famous actors who could play the role. Or look at animated films. There's no reason the voice acting has to be performed by Hollywood celebrities - there are unknown voice actors who could do the job as well or better. In fact this is exactly what was done 30 years ago (look at the cast of the Little Mermaid or Beauty and the Beast). But Hollywood A-listers are cast in major animated movies today so their celebrity can be levereged to promote the movies on the talk show circuit.
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Originally Posted by fotze
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We'll always have actors. Celebrity plays too important a role in the entertainment industry. There's a reason producers pay a-list actors so much money when there are just as skilled but less famous actors who could play the role. Or look at animated films. There's no reason the voice acting has to be performed by Hollywood celebrities - there are unknown voice actors who could do the job as well or better. In fact this is exactly what was done 30 years ago (look at the cast of the Little Mermaid or Beauty and the Beast). But Hollywood A-listers are cast in major animated movies today so their celebrity can be levereged to promote the movies on the talk show circuit.
You can't tell me Aladdin would have been better with generic voice actors for Genie and Iago than Robin Williams and Gilbert Gottfried.
Motion capture performance, anonymity, and the future of film acting
